ICYMI: Fabricating an artificial emergency isn’t intelligent | The Hill

November 28, 2023 

Last week, The Hill published a piece by Thomas Kimbrell, an analyst for Americans for Prosperity Foundation, and James Czerniawski, an analyst for Americans for Prosperity. The article calls out the Biden administration’s abuse of emergency powers to regulate artificial intelligence. 

President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on artificial intelligence abuses a 1950 war powers law called the Defense Production Act  meant to avoid shortages during times of war and national emergency. Worse, the administration is likely relying on and stretching the authorities of a rarely used but very coercive provision of the law to enact an overreaching regulatory scheme without any input from Congress.

Congress intended for such delegations of authority to the president to be temporary to respond to emergent crises that require swift action. However, presidents are increasingly using emergency powers to address long-standing policy failures, impose policy preferences, and circumvent our system of checks and balances.

AI is here to stay; it’s not going away. If such broad and significant oversight of AI development is warranted, then it is Congress’s responsibility to do so through legislation. Biden treating AI as an emergency fabricates a never-ending crisis that transfers to the president major powers over the economy that are constitutionally reserved for Congress.

Read the op-ed on The Hill.